Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Book Review: Indivisible by Kristen Heitzmann

Battling
his own personal demons, Police Chief Jonah Westfall knows the dark side
of life and has committed himself to eradicating it.

When a pair of
raccoons are found mutilated in Redford, Colorado, Jonah investigates
the gruesome act, knowing the strange event could escalate and destroy
the tranquility of his small mountain town.

With a rising drug threat
and never-ending conflict with Tia Manning, a formidable childhood
friend with whom he has more than a passing history, Jonah fights for
answers—and his fragile sobriety.

But he can’t penetrate every wound or secret—especially one fueled by a love and guilt teetering on madness.

From
best-selling author Kristen Heitzmann comes a spellbinding tale of
severed connections and the consequences of life lived alone.

This book was an early Christmas present from a good friend and fellow book junkie. Honestly it took me a little while to get into this book. In fact I read two books after starting this one. However, it kept beckoning me over, asking me to keep going and so I picked it up and finished it. I'm very glad I did.

What threw me off at first was the multiple points of view (POV) - four all up. Granted two were secondary with Jonah and Tia being the primary POV. It was unsettling though to change between four characters in the first few chapters of the book and I struggled to keep track of who was where. Once I got passed that I landed in a book I haven't quite read before and I liked what I read.

There is an underlying dark quality in this book. When I say dark quality, I'm not talking mystical stuff, I'm talking about past sins, wrongs, attitudes - life I guess. This book really explores the consequences of actions and the prisons we put ourselves in, in order to pay for our crimes. Heitzmann does this really well in Jonah and Tia - so well that I loved their scenes. They are constantly fighting their love for each other because of the past, that it makes them angry at each other, yet at the same time they are almost codependent on the other for their identity. You might say they are indivisible from each other.

This is a well written book filled with a few twists and turns. However is ultimately a book filled with layers. These characters are not cardboard cut-outs. They fight hard, cry hard and face life hard - often when it doesn't have to be quite so hard - but that is the nature of the prisons they live in. This is one of the best books I've read where characters are so real with each other. It hurts to watch Jonah and Tia letting the past corrode their lives. There is hope in the end though and it's a good ending.

Am looking forward to reading more from this surprising, in-depth and heartfelt writer.

Jess' favourite genre is contemporary women's fiction and contemporary romance fiction. She also enjoys historical fiction with a focus on romance. She loves books set in country towns or farms with a cowboy featured in either historical or contemporary settings.

She is currently writing her first novel, a contemporary women's fiction/romance set in a small country town.

2 comments:

Thank you for a well written and excellent descriptive review of this book. I read "Indivisible" when it first came out and enjoyed it very much. I had read all of this author's books up to that time and appreciated how her writing skill only improved. However, I personally believe the storylines of her most recent books are getting too dark for my taste. I have not personally purchased the newer books. I'm waiting for the new books to be reviewed by bloggers whose opinion I respect, i.e. every book does NOT get five stars! Thanks again for the thought and time you gave to this review.

Thanks for dropping by and replying. I don't often give most of my books such an in-depth review, it usually had to really capture me before I will and this book obviously did. The only other book of hers I have read is Indelible. I'm keen to read more of hers as I go along. Poetic writing with strong characters is hard to come by!